"percolating" poems
~
*Memphis
and the King,
plagued up
to his neck
in denial,
turning remote
controls
into staffs,
staffs into snakes,
jackals,
and hounds,
shaking the sistrum,
singing gospels
full of mystery
to a god,
a girl,
and state of mind
he will never solve,
asking skies
of transulent
orange,
from the far corners
of his world,
for pharmacopia,
then granting
Moses
his freedom
in exchange
for a box
of hot glazed
doughnuts,
and always
his little
wild petunia,
painted face
and percolating
body,
skin smooth
as the eastern Delta,
her weighted down heart,
his tyranny,
his self-destructive tongue,
her asp*
~
Aug 11, 2021
Aug 11, 2021 at 9:38 AM UTC
wind shuffles
through the long grass
seeded heads
drowsy
in the percolating afternoon
broiled air
heavy and lethargic
laboriously ascends
its unseen ladder
into the barren sky
Arcady sings
from a place
of unimaginable height
the song
is a whisper
at the precipice
I am the wing
that awaits your breath
to take flight
May 13, 2023
May 13, 2023 at 10:28 PM UTC
I was in the car with the mama of the girl I babysit,
her brown deep eyes like whittled wood flicked over mine,
and she asked me what I had learned at school today.
I don’t know, but I think it’s this spring fever
that seems to have burned a hole through my head
letting my brain bounce up into the blue abode
but the blame is not solely on the season
Everything I learn that keeps me living,
lives in the trains of thought,
thought by others.
The mothers I meet with the babies who greet the failure
at the first knock on their wobbly knees
compel me to contemplate further,
because with each waking breath
they are reminded that to live, you learn.
So I tell this fragile woman that today my teachers taught,
but the thought of their subjects
subjects negative connotations,
I want real lessons without plans to hand you wisdom, courage, and consideration
I get to learning in the jaw clinching, artery pinching, eyebrow flinching
awe of the way that woman can sing.
I’ve learned the color of my best friends teeth
because some days she smiles.
Learning to heal is hard enough, but to deal with a scab left raw
is something I will always need improvement on.
With, or without school I’m going to learn.
I’m going to learn cold beverage condensation rings,
percolating dreams,
my little sisters shy smiled wings
and societies racist, sexist, sizeist, ageist, ableist, tightly sewn seams.
Im rattling off my bare brisk list of ambitions,
of pleading for a voluminous scholarshipped tuition,
as I sit next to this woman waiting for a robust reply
I’m learning, that the whittled wood gap in her eyes
are round with sticky sap.
She will teach her daughter academically, never letting her size our common ground;
The skies.
I want her baby to experience,
and as if on cue,
her yawn brings in the tides of the oceans in her eyes,
something she’s learning to cope with,
she’s grasping my soft word’s
“This too, shall pass,
make sure you look to learn with your eyes not your brain,
dear baby girl, choose water over wood,
and when your mama tells you to pack that school bag,
make sure its zipper barely closes over
tightly stuffed open mindedness, and a few colored pencils.”
Jun 21, 2012
Jun 21, 2012 at 10:38 PM UTC
***Butterflies in my head
like percolating coffee suds
i walked a little faster
to catch up with my mind's anachronisms
future like a prism in high def
building castles of cotton candy vapors
smoky salt tears whisper out loud
like a hot knife through butter foam
dancing in enraged twists of prophetic cyclonic squalls
shindig of cobalt's eclectic leaves storming fiercely down
wading in puddles of refractive delirium's trippy next dip***
Mar 9, 2014
Mar 9, 2014 at 4:48 PM UTC
It begins here.
In the percolating silence
that lingers behind gritted teeth--
the loose threads on denim jeans
that only ever gets cut,
the landfall that prays
for minimal casualties
except each body bag
contained pieces of your heart
he could no longer mend --
a slightly-timed confession.
The end begins in the way
the essence of the beginning
becomes foreign.
We know about length measurements
from school,
but kilometers or feet
do not weave the tapestry
in spaces between two people.
Distance,
we forget,
surpasses the cataract-like
tunneled notion of
merely its quantitative value.
I see it in the way you've forgotten
how to make me laugh.
How you've got a grip
on my hand
and yet
I'm still reaching out.
How we walk on eggshells
around each other,
and traded in words
for daggers
or words
that didn't matter
enough to land on ears
that swell to listen.
Ticking bombs,
deep sighs,
feeble temperament
waiting for the softest nudge
to topple the tower,
and you’ve predicted
the catastrophe
long before a tandem
of hot flesh
had turned cold,
and bruised,
and hurting.
The galaxies
in our eyes,
rusty,
no longer colliding
into sweet solace—
you’ll realize that
you’ll always be in the
losing end
where you flaunt your
vulnerability
in plain sight
like a mannequin
on the other side
of the looking glass.
Let me stay for a bit.
Let me mourn what’s passed
and cherish
whatever’s left.
Jul 10, 2018
Jul 10, 2018 at 6:24 PM UTC
Isn't it a pity that,
what she and I have
might be a
foretold; untold tale?
This writhing soul might be a fool to be
- t a n t a l i z e d -
by her honey-like scent,
with the topical rose redolence;
percolating every existing room for air
in my thickly tar-scarred lungs
from every hush of her troubled breath---
only then to realise that
every passing seconds spent
have always been a constellation of
== inane innuendo ==
to pique the lovelorn in me.
Dec 5, 2020
Dec 5, 2020 at 8:16 PM UTC
…i have learned my lesson / One should not give the impression / of being too happy / as you don’t do
happy / you and angry / are comfortable / misery / your longtime friend / but with happy / you are
unacquainted / and / too much joviality / for too long a period / puts the proverbial underpants in a bunch /
too much free-range fondling / and unnecessary emotion / is a commotion / that puts the Neanderthal in
you / into uncharted territory / off the clear and obvious path / with a virtual stick / banging the bushes of
my spirit / waiting to see what emerges / and surprisingly / you are surprised / that what emerges is /
seldom what you expect / but what do you expect? / That i will continually ride this / histrionic
rollercoaster? / apprehensively peaking hills? / uncertainly braving valleys? / stop the maniacal ups and
downs i think i want to get off / on you / and with you / but that just wont do / cuz you / fail to realize /
that I am / percolating and oozing / straight inundated with / sweetness / and to get the full overflow / of
said sweetness / is a privilege… / and not a right… / therefore / to the benefit of no one / and as a
consequence of your / vacillation and inconstancy / i have made the determination / to Cap this most
fundamental Well / sadly / i have learned my lesson…
Jan 29, 2012
Jan 29, 2012 at 7:21 AM UTC
Pupils contract, in protection, from the onslaught of light
which peels off colours out of the abyss,
shedding sight, on blackness,
the contours of the dream
are beautiful
and falling.
I, a curious position in space, attempt to relate here,
whilst all is being swallowed, and swirled,
in the belly of the Goddess,
whom engineers
faultlessly,
as we
fall.
Monkeys driven by meaning, are strangling reality,
effulgent as she is, near, unctuous and yielding,
a shame, that vision is not seeing,
and seeing is believing,
and god is dead,
and science
is a net
holding
frailty.
Behind the mist of morning, at the waters edge,
in the brimming beams of sunlight,
the percolating mountains,
the stretch of land,
the capsule of
atmosphere,
here:
Is the unknown, and unknowable, the black truth,
we tremble before, afraid of the death
it pours over our living ******
Yet what is enlightenment, but the ability
to see in the dark, and what is the dark
but the absolute liberating force,
the annihilating edge,
obliterative.
And what is nothing,
but everything.
Feb 28, 2015
Feb 28, 2015 at 9:56 PM UTC
I had no eyes
until I saw the sun set
with a smile percolating
through golden leaves and
into me.
This same evening long ago
taught me how not to worry
of grand shadows huddled
impatiently at every corner
for they too withdraw
into periphery like all else
if you let them follow you
into the darkness.
Jan 25, 2025
Jan 25, 2025 at 9:59 AM UTC
2nd to rise, she enquires
you ready for coffee?
it's only 6:22am
if you're having, I'm having...
she quiet disappears
thinking coffee's coming,
when to this layabout,
it occurs,
she's making
coffee in the ****
get up, make myself presentable,
track her,
the coffee aroma pulsating,
radar signal emitting
sure enough,
coffee in the ****
grinding, dripping...percolating
but what I see is
contrast and
definition
appliance white
stainless
steel chrome gleaming,
walnut wood cabinetry warming in
Vermeer sunlight window in-streaming,
a Chagall and Botticelli duet,
freshly filtered
thru a Manhattan sky
and flesh,
freshly filtered
flesh
is not a Crayola color,
or
if it is,
it's more a spectrum,
than a single shade
but this moment morning
flesh is more realized,
as if recognized for the first time,
by a newborn old timer,
who senses the
comprehension tension of circumspection
circumcised differentiation,
flesh knowledge gradation gained
this poem,
a first attempt at
painting a ****
in words
appreciating task enormity,
for there are currently
insufficient words,
too many striations,
all cannot be straitjacketed to the
vocabulary palette
this then,
but my first definition of many,
of
flesh
so many canvasses,
so many undiscovered shadings
awaiting
****** recognition definition,
composition
Jul 24, 2015
Jul 24, 2015 at 6:27 PM UTC
We ventured in to the garden of night's Eden
two intrepid adventures seeking a fruit forbidden.
Night delights in it's prospects of dangers kept hidden
in the darkest part eyes go blind is laid out it's biggest plan,
in frozen silence of deeper layers, lie in wait the predators
they told us, but we were deaf to the admonitions then.
Her hot breath on my naked chest, where sweat poured like rain
felt not ticklish, as earlier, this, is a secret tap of the finger of fear ,
we didn't flash the light, not to alarm the beasts, held the breath.
In the percolating drops of wet green light,of fluorescent moon
she points up to a tree branch, close by and I view in disbelief:
A python, its speckled noose ready, keeps vigil, darkly dreaming,
intently listening to the ascending aria of a nightingale's song.
Mar 9, 2015
Mar 9, 2015 at 6:02 AM UTC
The scallops squat
in their queer little cesspool,
small moon-white
skulls, vulnerable
like bare flesh
and hissing and spitting
in their juices,
gelling on the edges
like late November lake ice.
Dumpy little membranes,
they're applauding! -
percolating and foaming
at the mouth, and quickly,
now roaring - ecstatic
in a watery grave
that looks and feels like home.
Sep 26, 2012
Sep 26, 2012 at 9:40 PM UTC
I sense the rain diggin' into my brain harder than a migraine
So I take tokes of the Mary Jane simple and plain
huh
Things ain't the same ever since you came
Into my life from the kids to my universal wife
Married to the cosmos so I can expose
Myself to energy that was left
Of my consciousness
Sick of the the nonsense
I'm feelin' dry wipe the tears from God's eye
Never knew why?
How I'm feelin' the madness filled with sadness
Which I could reverse the pains fillin' soon to burst
Out of emotion life's a constant commotion
as my thoughts sink deeper than an ocean
Many can't stand the rain....
It's early in the morning I'm bawling crawling
In my sleep as my chakras begin to creep
I'm in too deep peep
the madness running around
Percolating soon to drown what's that sound
I'm hearing voices of past choices block out the
noises
visions of a gloomy glare though no one's there
Just prefigured destiny
of a hidden enemy
A closed vessel soon to open into a portal
A worm hole corticals swole so know the protocol
I'm the first and the last
baby girls you more than just a piece of *** as I clash
Like opposite magnets attached
To your love
Beautiful dove spreading wings
Above
Take flight away into the golden disc
Givin' us a sun kiss
Many can't stand the rain...
Now that the rain done poured mother nature stored
Mankinds sins into the ground but then again
Let the madness re-ascend cuz the roots been
Tampered with so many mental caskets
Scared to wake up cuz they love being dead
Chasin' bread scared of every thing they red
On the frontlines of newspapers stop catching the vapors
Undercover raiders energy creator I'm dark as Vader
From alpha to omega the worlds a stage of
Actors and actresses leave no witnesses
Once the sun comes out begins a new drout
Should have caught the raindrops before it stopped
Many can't the rain...
Sep 30, 2018
Sep 30, 2018 at 4:29 AM UTC
There is a very thin line
Between love and lust
Between sea and sky
Between me and you
Such a fine line
That I can see
Touch it from
Here
Enclosed in the high rise monster
(That mostly dot the sea face, all around the sea in Mumbai)
reaching out to be.
From here
-Where silence is whispering to the sea
Waves percolating through my window
Where darkness of my ****** thoughts
Seep in through the night's gateway
A window with three glass frames
Barred, framed and up-curtained
Unveiled and naked.
From here I see it all bared
I can actually reach out
And separate them
The love and the lust
The entangled Sea with the sky
Create a divide between them
With my desire
To BE
Some times I just want to BE
Some times Sea in all its thrashing about
With waves and tsunami's just want to BE too
Some times the sky
With its dark cloud and their silver linings
Just wanna BE, you see?
Some times all of us want to
Reach out
Separate love from lust
And desire just to BE
Just to BE in love
Pure, undiluted, undefined, unnamed
Unbinding, untagged
Just Love,
LOVE,
I Love to BE
Sep 9, 2010
Sep 9, 2010 at 6:08 AM UTC
Likes, of hearts red, a positive memo in mailbox,
a sun bright, all become tickles inside my heart.
Little energetic sparks of encouragement
to light up words percolating in mind.
The likes become fuel for the wandering poetess I am.
A poet, who walks in breath infused with an idea.
A scribe, who dances to the music of a readers smile.
A writer, who holds gratitude for all those who write,
as we are family.
Thats me! One who savors all the red hearts I can gather, to plant in my poetic flower bed in mind. The field I caretake for a bouquet of poems to be picked and shared.
THANKS followers and others who come to my door step of a page. Happy reading!
May 11, 2017
May 11, 2017 at 11:05 PM UTC
the earbud cacophony keeps my company
speeding past whatever else was percolating
(thoughts have a hard time running straight)
I fear the silence of a lonely bedroom
submerged in cotton ball of darkness
a pillow over my head to filter the smog of bad ideas
it doesn't help
I feel ****
unprotected and ashamed
brought to my knees by a lack of serotonin
my only fear:
the thoughts of those who think they loved me
and the regret that will make them think they loved me more
as if a hushed word or "thank you" coulda made everything alright
by setting a candle in the smog alight
Jul 26, 2018
Jul 26, 2018 at 12:50 AM UTC
In winter the clouds let out what they can't hold anymore
The ground drinks it up
Each water droplet percolating
Nourishing what's beneath the surface
Like humans, when watered properly
Not too much
Or too little
The earth gives thanks
It loves the sky right back
Blooming up to the sun
Saying thank you
I love you.
Mar 27, 2017
Mar 27, 2017 at 7:37 PM UTC
Shaking skinny finger
bones
Running snot-bubble percolating
noses
Giving silent prayers and requests
to the pillows and
ceilings of the world
They go unanswered
and these silently sobbing
confused, misplaced
souls are stuck
in this churning void
that's called
ACCEPTING THE HAND YOU'RE DEALT
and
a juxtaposition of WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN,
WHAT WILL HAPPEN, and
a **** it" attitude.
Feb 24, 2011
Feb 24, 2011 at 9:34 AM UTC
Sat in the car at the back of beyond.
Beyond reasoning what I'm doing here.
I fear.
Anti clockwise rhythms, rhyming with the guy who's nice.
My head's obliterated and my heart is cool as ice.
He's a box of soppy.
She's a box of stroppy.
Confusing muses puzzling.
Nudging.
Percolating.
Brewing.
Never beer or whine I fear.
She supposes she can maybe love him again.
After the sunshine blew thunder and rain.
Maybe a little love be retained.
Enigmatic future.
(c) Livvi
Mar 1, 2015
Mar 1, 2015 at 6:57 PM UTC
Prisms encased bare branches.
Tiny rainbows refracted on the asphalt.
Glass trees
and the golden pink sky
flying by.
You left.
You left me with the sun.
Then it left me too
so I fell as darkness fell.
My hands folded on my chest,
my body straight,
in the casket of my bed, veiled
with warm covers, I slept.
Rapid eyes reconstructed the sun,
painting on my eyelids.
Soft shaded grass beneath my soles,
from the shadow of my house,
That eclipsed the setting sun.
I made my way next door,
with bare feet, lead by my shadow.
I felt your presence.
Gran,
I felt your ghost in my dream.
You sat inside the kitchen,
center, by the table
looking adoringly at the family.
Everyone was laughing and talking.
They seemed to glow around you.
Mom tended to all the guests,
while my aunt made coffee.
There was little food,
little physical evidence of celebration.
Just the smell
of the bitter black beverage percolating,
and kids like firefly
lights, appearing and disappearing
from view as they played
between our legs.
I didn’t know how to say “bye” then,
with your frail chest heaving
and plastic tubes tangled around you.
Silence griped my throat
strangling my “Goodbye,
Gran”.
But, now, you were at the kitchen table,
from unknown horizons,
hugging me,
to give back the time
to speak more loudly without words
what I couldn’t before.
You waited till I had let you go
before making your rounds
to end the last farewell.
I followed you out
as you made your way through the garage
heading west past the blue stones
and the wall of evergreen.
I stopped you before you left the shade
into the golden pink light,
that fiery light,
and gave you another long hug,
and a kiss to take with you
as you evaporated in the glare.
You left as you did before,
Gran,
with the sun.
A dusty beam of light peeked
through a crack in the blinds
waking me;
my cheeks stuck to the wet pillow.
Gran, you always had a way of reminding me to wash my sheets.
Apr 18, 2012
Apr 18, 2012 at 1:50 PM UTC
Silence is deafening
Waking from a cacophony of sounds much like "A Day in the Life"
Only to find that silence is greater than any voluminous discord imagined
Feeling like a superhuman, the world is now illuminated
With choirs of percolating atoms spinning
Pure harmonious energy that goes under the human threshold
Silence is actualizing
Awakening to the potentialities and nuances lost in the clutter of prepositions and pronouns
Experiencing how momentous each rise and fall of breath erupts to revitalize the whole world
Perceptions externalized and internalized merge as one truth
Tangibly existing as a universe within a boundless wave of sensations
Silence is beautiful
Silence is breathtaking
Silence is humble
Silence is abundant
Silence is the world
Silence is the body
Silence is the mind
Silence is the soul
Silent I am
May 25, 2015
May 25, 2015 at 12:23 PM UTC
Java is percolating
in the Bunn,
it's fragrance is
filling the countryside,
and as usual,
I'm on the run.
But this morning,
I feel different.
think I'm going
to slow things down a bit
& try to have a little more fun.
Some more ziplining ought to do it,
but first,
I'm going to guzzle this coffee,
quench this never ending thirst!
Jul 10, 2014
Jul 10, 2014 at 7:11 AM UTC
The road I travel has called me again.
Yet, that's not true, as the voice was never quiet.
It was only hidden away like a pair of shameful eyes.
Closed to the admonishments of a sadistic lover.
Yet always there bubbling, percolating, cajoling in a soothing voice.
Beckoning me with memories of freedom and the comforting drone of the road.
Reminders of rest areas swarmed with hopeful travelers with red eyes and creaking joints.
The vending machine stand stoically in a row like good soldiers standing at attention.
Windows open, air buffeting, my face is that of a child catching the new rays of spring.
Music blaring, singing along, my soul rising like a barometer as high pressure moves in.
Right lane driving, eyes gleaming, each passing car tells a story of hope and and unveiled inspiration.
Small towns passing, unrealized lives, I ache to know you. Yet our paths must remain distantly apart.
Night falls and the excitement only builds. The bulbs of light above are my guide. No map has their magnetic draw.
The scene changes as the road becomes deserted. My fellow journeyers are swimming or ordering room service.
My metal friend shall be my bed. This jug of water my frigid shower in the morning. Late night talk radio my lullaby song.
My thoughts are pure and calm as I curl up in the backseat. No fear or remorse that I've spurned all lovers. My needs are few and my heart is full.
Jan 26, 2014
Jan 26, 2014 at 1:17 PM UTC
there are CPR techniques
in the copy room
my eyes won't light up if
they can't find you
my soundtrack is
percolating coffee and
keys sliding through locks
i'm not being careful
certainly not careless
all i need is one more
kiss
just don't forget my name
school taught me
i don't know how to
think
Sep 26, 2012
Sep 26, 2012 at 12:20 AM UTC